The present disclosure relates in general to the field of computing systems, and more specifically, to electronic payment systems.
A smart card, integrated circuit card (ICC), or “chip card” are pocket-sized cards with embedded integrated circuits. Such chip cards (or the integrated circuits of such chip cards) have been embedded in some smartphones and other mobile computing devices. The chip cards can provide identification, authentication, data storage, and application processing and have been used in connection with electronic payment, such as credit, debit, public transport, and phone cards, as well as other identification schemes, such as health insurance, school, and other government identification. Chip cards can include contact and contactless chip cards. A contact chip card can be activated when contact pads of the chip card are brought into contact with a card reader. A contactless chip card communicates with and is powered by a reader through radio frequency (RF) induction technology when the card is brought into proximity to an antenna of the reader.
All of the major payment card brands have begun supporting payment using mobile devices at merchant point-of-sale (POS) terminals. The Europay, Mastercard, and Visa (EMV) consortium previously defined standards for chip cards, which are rectangular plastic cards containing a chip. EMV has adapted these standards to mobile devices that communicate with a merchant POS terminal via Near Field Communication (NFC). The cardholder data and algorithms that were in a chip card are now supported in mobile devices, such as common mobile “smart” phones. Accordingly, a “card” can also refer to a payment instrument implemented on a mobile device, even though there is no rectangular plastic card.